Chapter 108: Chapter 108 Spirit Contamination_1
The moment the pendant slipped from Aiden’s grasp, the scene before his eyes twisted with the surrounding mist, quickly fading until it disappeared completely, and his office once again appeared before him.
The sound of Abigail’s voice pouring into his ears stopped abruptly, but Aiden’s mind was still echoing with the words she had said, like a melody that emerged out of nowhere on a normal day, relentlessly repeating over and over again.
Aiden was at all incapable of understanding the sounds coming from Abigail’s mouth, but he could clearly identify it as a language.
A language... that humans couldn’t possibly utter, nor could they begin to comprehend.
Yet, these words carried a terrifying magic power, forcing his mind to understand.
It was as if an undecipherable garble had been forcefully inserted into the smoothly running code, irremovable, impairing his ability to think normally...
Can’t understand... Can’t understand... Error... All errors...
His head throbbed in waves of sharp pain, and a sensation of nausea welled up from deep within his belly, pressing upwards relentlessly.
How could one describe such a feeling?
Like a thousand cockroaches crawling densely over the surface of the cerebral cortex...
Like a thousand needles pierced into the head and slowly burrowing deeper...
As if he were submerged in a myriad of bloody limbs and severed body parts, a spider as large as a washbasin lunging at his face, countless worm-like parasites poured into his mouth, wriggling down his throat and into his body, meandering through his limbs—the spiritual contamination assaulting his consciousness like rapid gunfire, leaving it riddled with holes.
He screamed involuntarily, flailing his arms and knocking everything off the desk onto the floor.
This eruption did not alleviate his suffering; his thoughts were swiftly sucked into the vortex of pain, ripped to shreds.
Why is this happening... What has happened... What am I doing... It must end... What to do... Must think of a way... Desiring release... Must do that... Yes, just do that...
When he somewhat regained his composure, he found that he had drawn his service pistol and was staring down the barrel at his own jaw.
The last bit of sanity reconnected just in time, and with a start, he woke and pushed the gun down onto the table.
What was I about to do?
Suicide!?
A cold sweat broke out on Aiden in an instant.
This strange voice, it was disrupting his consciousness and inducing him to commit suicide...
Stay calm, he must stay calm...
Driven by a strong desire, an idea emerged in his turbulent consciousness and Aiden clung to this lifeline, immediately putting it into action.
He once again employed his ability to alter his physiology, aging his body.
His hair rapidly turned gray, then in the blink of an eye, pure white, as wrinkles carved deeper grooves across his face, creating the texture of dried tree bark.
His body felt increasingly sluggish, the vitality of life receding like the tide.
Devoid of passion and energy, he suddenly entered a sage mode, disinterested in everything, as the surging waves of emotion transformed into a placid lake, his thoughts becoming peaceful and mature.
This was one of the utilitarian functions of physical transformation, sacrificing various physical abilities to gain a slight clarity of mind.
Aiden collapsed into his office chair, breathing heavily, regulating his breath.
For now, it had some effect, his consciousness gradually adjusted to the mental assault, allowing him to think somewhat normally again.
But this did not mean he was out of danger, that strange voice still resonated in his mind.
If this state were to continue, falling asleep would be utterly impossible.
Sooner or later, he would reach his limit, either tormented to death or driven insane.
Aiden simply did not understand what was going on.
Abigail, with just a single sentence, had caused intense mental contamination, nearly making him lose his sanity and commit suicide.
In his understanding, this was definitely not a spell of the mental kind, rather... it had completely surpassed the scope of black magic.
The form of black magic involved constructing incantations or runes into a medium. These so-called incantations and runes, no matter how obscure, were ultimately human language and script.
But the "words" spoken by Abigail could not possibly be of human origin—after all, human throats could not produce such sounds.
Moreover, this language seemed to carry a "dimension" he could not comprehend. When forced by the power contained in the sentence to consider the "dimension," his thoughts became trapped in a loop like a system glitch, until they crashed.
How could he make it stop?
Besides Abigail, who else knew how to adapt to this language?
No, wait...
Isn’t there someone?
Aiden suddenly remembered.
During the meeting just before, when Abigail had uttered that strange "incantation," the other witches present should have heard it as well.
Yet they seemed unaffected, which meant that the witches qualified to participate in that small gathering knew how to adapt to this language.
And Daili was originally one of them.
Thinking of this, Aiden immediately stood up from his seat, suddenly feeling a sore back and aching waist.
The physical modifications he had undergone to make himself appear old and frail might have been a bit too much.
Having regained his composure, Aiden tried to revert his body back to its original form.
Bearing with the discomfort, he straightened his attire, stood up, and went to open the door of his office, then called out to a passing jailer.
"Take a few men, go to the core area and bring the prisoner..." Aiden paused mid-sentence as he was devoting part of his attention to resisting the mental contamination, and for a moment he couldn’t recall Daili’s inmate number as easily as usual, "Go... bring Daili here, now."
"Yes, sir!" The other responded at once with a salute, then began speaking hesitantly, "Warden... You don’t look so good. Are you feeling unwell?"
"I’m fine, don’t worry about it," Aiden replied with effort, urging him, "Just go."
After closing the door, Aiden sat back down at his position, waiting agonizingly.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when there was a knock on the door of his office once again.
"Come in!" Aiden called out urgently.
The door opened, and Daili walked into the office under the watchful eyes of the jailer and riot police.
When she saw the chaos inside the office, Daili hesitated for a moment, and then she noticed that she had stepped on something hard, subconsciously looking down.
The pendant, serving as the Great Witch’s Credential, lay at her feet; the gray mist sealed within had vanished, and a crack appeared on the surface of the black crystal—It was only then that Aiden realized in his confusion he had forgotten to pick up the pendant.
"Indeed, it has turned out this way..." Daili suddenly nodded her head, turned back to look into Aiden’s eyes and said, "Warden, have you already received Abigail’s ’teaching’?"
